The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1887-09-02
WOMAN'S OPPORTUNITY.
DISCOURSE BY REV. DR.. TAlMAGE
AT THE HAMPTONS.

enc WORK ana 10 Move III Particuln
spheres - Woman suGragists UNIT t.
Vote or to Keep House.
THE HAMPToNs, Aug 2s.--"Woman'
Opportunity" was the subject of dis
course by the Rev. 7. De Witt Talmage
ID. d., today, and his text: $50 Coz
created man in his own image, tin
image of God created he him; male ant
female created he them. "-Genesis |
81. Following is the sermon in full:
In other words God, who can make NJ
mistake, made man and woman for
specific work and to move in particular
spheres-man to he regnant in his realm
woman to be dominant in hers. The
boundary line between Italy and Switzer
land. between England and Scotland, is
not more roughly marked than this
distinction between the empire mascu.
line and the empire feminine. So en-.
tirely dissimilar are the fields to which
God called them, that you can nc
more compare them than you can oxygen
and hydrogen, water and grass, trees and
stars. All this talk about the superiority
of one sex to the other is an everlasting
waste of ink and speech. A jeweler
may have scale so delicate that he can
weigh the dust of diamonds; but where
are the scales so delicate that you can
weigh in them affection against affec-
ton, sentiment against sentiment, thought
against thought, soul against soul, a
mans world against woman's world?
You come out with your stereotyped re-
mark, the man is superior to woman in
intellect; and then l open on my desk
the swarthy, iron typed, thunder boltcd
writings of Harriet Martineau and Eliza
beth Browning and George Eliot. You
come on with your stereotyped remark
about woman S superiority to man in the
item Of affection, but ask you where
was there more capacity to love than in
John the disciple, and Robert McCheyne,
the Scotchman, and John Summerfeld,
the Methodist, and Henry Martin, the
missionary? The heart Of those men was
SO large that after you had rolled
into it two hemispheres, there was room
still left to marshal the hosts of
heaven, and set up the throne
of the eternal Jehovah. I deny to man
the throne intellectual. I deny to woman
the throne affectional No human phrase
ology will ever define the spheres, while
there is an intuition by which we know
when man is in his realm and when
woman is in her realm. and when either
of them is out OF it. No bungling legis-
lature ought to attempt to make defini-
ton or to say: This is the line and
that is the line My theory is that if
woman wants to vote, she ought to vote,
on6 f1of if to o,,hro,ln,s
and keep house, he ought to be allowed
to embroider and keep house. There are
masculine women and there are effemi-
nate men. My theory is that you have
no right to interfere with any ones doing
anything that is righteous. Albany and
Washington might as well decree by
legislation how high brown thrasher
should fly, or how deep a trout should
plunge, as to try to seek out the height or
depth of a woman's duty. The question
Of capacity will settle finally the whole
question. the whole subject. When a
woman is prepared to preach, she will
preach, and neither conference nor pres
bytery can hinder her. When woman
is prepared to move in highest CONNER
cial spheres. she will have great influence
can hinder her. 1 want woman to I'M
derstand that heart and brain can overly
any barrier that politicians may set up,
and that nothing can keep her back or
keep her down but the question of inca
pacity.
There are women, I know, of most I'M
desirable nature, who wander up and
down the CONTEMPLATING no homes of
their own or forsaking their own homes
talking about their rights; and we
know very well that they themselves are
fit neither to vote nor fit to keep house.
Their mission seems to be to humiliate
the two sexes at the thought of what any
one of us might become. No one would
want to live under the laws that such
women would enact or to have cast upon
society the children that such women
would raise. But shall show you this
morning that the best rights that woman
can own she already has in her possess
sion; that her position in this country at
this time is not one of commiseration,
but one of congratulation; that the gran
deur and power of her realm have never
yet been appreciates; that she sits to-day
on u throne SO high that all the
thrones of earth piled on top of
each other would not mako for
her footstool. Here is the platform
on which she stands. Away down below
it are the ballot box and the congressional
assemblage and the legislative hall.
Woman always has voted and always
will vote. Our great-grandfathers thought |
they were by their votes putting Wash
ington into the presidential chair. No.
His mother, by the principles she taught
him and the habits she inculcated, made
him president. 1t was a Christian mothers
hand dropping the ballot when Lord
Bacon wrote, and Newton philosophical,
and Alfred the Great governed, and Jona-
than Edwards Numbered of Judgment to
come. How many men there have been
in high political station who would have
been insufficient to stand the test to which |
their moral principle was put had it not
been for wife's voice that encouraged |
them to do right, and wife's prayer
that sounded louder than the clamor of |
partisanship? Why, my friends, the right |
of suffrage, as we men exercise it, seems
to he feeble thing. You, Christian
man, come up to the ballot box and YOU